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War Rumours Threats: Full U.S. pullout from Afghanistan could ignite ‘total civil war’

Matthew 24:6-8 And
ye shall
hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not
troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be
famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the
beginning of sorrows.

Mark 13:7-8 And
when ye
shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be ye not troubled:
for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be
earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these
are the beginnings of sorrows.

1 Thessalonians 5:3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh
upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

War Rumours Threats: Full U.S.
pullout from Afghanistan could ignite ‘total civil war’

By Jonathan Landay. Reuters•September 3, 2019

WASHINGTON
(Reuters) – Nine former U.S. ambassadors
on Tuesday warned that Afghanistan could collapse in a “total civil
war” if President Donald Trump withdraws all U.S. forces before the Kabul
government and the Taliban conclude a peace settlement.

“A major troop withdrawal must
be contingent on a final peace,” the nine wrote on the website of the
Atlantic Council, a think tank. “The initial U.S. drawdown should not go
so far or so fast that the Taliban believe they can achieve military victory.”

The nine, including five former
ambassadors to Kabul, a former special envoy to Afghanistan and a former deputy
secretary of State, issued their warning a day after U.S. chief negotiator
Zalmay Khalilzad announced a draft accord with the Taliban for an initial drawdown
of nearly 5,000 U.S. troops.

Khalilzad,
speaking on Monday to Tolo News television in Kabul, declined to say how long
the rest of the roughly 14,000 U.S. troops would stay. But U.S. officials
repeatedly have said the pullout would be “conditions based.”

In exchange,
the Taliban would commit to preventing their decades-long ally, al Qaeda, or
other extremists from using the country as a springboard for new attacks.

Trump has
made clear his impatience to withdraw all U.S. forces and end America’s longest
war, which began with a U.S. invasion triggered by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks
that al Qaeda launched from then Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Khalilzad
said Trump must approve the draft before it can be signed.

Khalilzad
excluded Kabul from the nine rounds of U.S.-Taliban talks in Qatar. But he has
said it would be part of negotiations on a political settlement with the
Taliban, which has so far refused to meet directly with Afghan officials.

Maintaining a major U.S. troop
presence would have “a critical influence on the chances for successful
peace negotiations,” the former diplomats wrote.

“It is not clear whether peace
is possible. The Taliban have made no clear statements about the conditions
they would accept for a peaceful settlement with their fellow Afghans, nor do
they have a track record of working with other political forces,” they
said.

“There is an outcome far worse
than the status quo, namely a return to the total civil war that consumed
Afghanistan as badly as the war with the Russians and something that could
follow a breakdown in negotiations if we remove too much support from the
Afghan state, they wrote.

A new civil war “could prove
catastrophic for U.S. national security” as it likely would see the
Taliban maintain their alliance with al Qaeda and allow Islamic State’s growing
local affiliate” to further expand, they said.